The invention relates to the field of multimode fibers, and in particular to bidirectional optical link over a single multimode fiber or waveguide.
Most optical links are point-to-point links. The present practice is to have two fibers—one for transmission and the other for reception of light. Two fibers are used to primarily avoid any coupling of two lasers on the two sides of the link. It is possible to construct a bidirectional link over the same fiber without making lasers unstable if “uplink” used a different wavelength then “downlink”. Now it is possible to use a simple 3 dB beam splitter at each end. Because the wavelengths are different, the lasers do not couple and hence the link is made. In this case, there will be 6 db (3 dB each end) insertion loss from the beam splitters. This may not be a problem if there is sufficient transmit laser power and receiver sensitivity.
The 6 dB link loss is significant if the light is either traveling long distances or in case of high speed links when there is often insufficient link margin. In this case wavelength separation optics at each end can efficiently separate the colors to provide low loss link for each direction. This is well known and implemented in large volume in Passive Area Networks (PONS) by telecomm companies. Wavelength separation optics generally adds cost. This stems from (1) use of wavelength separation optics such as filters, gratings etc. (2) higher alignment requirements, (3) more complex testing and assembly, (4) inventory of at least two different wavelength transmitters, or the like.
Even if a clever transceiver design overcomes the various hurdles mentioned above, one still has a logistical challenge. Transceivers have to be labeled—say Red and Blue corresponding to the different wavelengths of the lasers. The two ends of the bidirectional link over a same fiber must have Red and Blue transceiver at each end. This is a real market challenge. Imagine that optical links are used for high speed television data such as HDMI links. Now in this case one may decide that all DVD players carry Blue transceivers and all TV's carry Red transceivers. This may be OK until a receiver is inserted between TV and DVD player. Now one may have to explicitly label Red ports for reception and Blue ports for transmission. If a TV manufacturer decides that the TV may be used to connect a home video camera to the DVD recorder and another auxiliary display, suddenly the TV must carry Red transceivers too.
One might overcome some of the above limitations of using wavelength multiplexing by using the same wavelength lasers at both ends and insert attenuators in the link such that it maintains the link but provides sufficiently high insertion loss to not make the lasers unstable. This is a not a very robust solution since lasers are high gain devices and it is hard to maintain precise attenuation while maintaining adequate link margin. Only a very carefully constructed laser coupling (with precision alignment requirement) and fixed length links with “factory-set” attenuation tweaked for each link at manufacturing might work. This means that it is difficult to imagine links constructed with multimode fibers and customer made patch cords in the field.